


Exit Status

by MnemonicMadness



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bittersweet, Decima!John, Declarations Of Love, Enemies to Lovers, Episode: s05e13 Return 0, First Kiss, Heavy Angst, Hurt Harold Finch, M/M, Mild Gore, POV Harold Finch, Pining, Team Samaritan!John, sort of as per my usual style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 12:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16304852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MnemonicMadness/pseuds/MnemonicMadness
Summary: A hint of a tired smile steals itself onto his lips, fleeting like the breeze brings it and takes it away. The first rays of the morning sun warm his face, making his skin feel alive even as he feels more blood soaking his clothes and it occurs to him that chances are that this is the last morning he will see. His next breath shudders, the one after that is steady and deep. He opens his eyes and feels his heart shatter in his chest.Or: The return 0 rooftop scene, but with a version of John who works for Samaritan.





	Exit Status

**Author's Note:**

> I've written this a while ago and since someone (*side-eyes Tee* ily ♥) insisted I should stop hoarding fics and post something already... Well.  
> Special thanks to Sky for giving me advice with this, and to Leena for helping me with the title and summary! You guys are amazing!

The stairs seem endless and his feet are heavy, it’s an exercise of will to drag them up each step, but it’s his heart that seems like weighed down with lead and the gun in his right hand seems harder to carry than the briefcase containing what’s left of his creation. A minute ago, the blood seeping through the soft cotton of his shirt and into the wool of his waistcoat had felt disconcertingly warm around the throbbing of the bullet wound. Now it seems cool, the area around it beginning to grow numb and he knows he is losing too much blood, going into shock. The awareness clings to the edges of his mind for a moment, then gets swept up by the waves of indifference encroaching on his consciousness.

All that exists for a moment is the next step. Lifting one leg, setting it down, shifting his weight. Again, again, and then his left leg crumbles. He stumbles to the side, a small noise escaping him when his damaged hip hits the handrail. He stops, breathes. Lifts one leg, sets it down on the next stair, ignores the streak of red he leaves on the white plastered wall. His breath rings too loud in the silence, laboured and shallow.

Step after step after step, and a wave of dizziness has him leaning against the white wall when he finally arrives on top, leaving another red stain when he feels steady enough to step away, towards the door. Metal, and painted just as white as the walls around him, the black door handle a stark contrast against it. Not far now, he tells himself. He won’t have to go much further.

His next step is stumbling, he barely manages to catch himself on it. The wound in his abdomen throbs and his legs are shaking. So is his hand – the right one, still wrapped tightly, inexpertly around the gun – when he reaches out, and he watches it for a moment with a sense of detachment. The hard plastic of the handle feels almost warm against the ball of his hand when he settles it on it and it’s more gravity than muscle work that lets him press it downwards. He allows his legs to fail him now, lets the door catch his weight even though the sound that leaves him now is more of a whimper than a groan as hot pain cuts through the numbness.

The door clicks open and somewhere in the back of his mind, something tells him that this door should be locked, that he should need to put down the briefcase with his Machine and the gun, should have to pick the lock. He ignores the thought, pushes it behind the fog growing denser in his consciousness by the minute now with more ease than he should. Forces his legs to work once more, to force the door far enough open for him to slip through, leaving behind yet more red on white paint.

Finally, the heavy metal relents and he stumbles outside, almost twisting his ankle when unexpectedly, the concrete surface of the rooftop is slightly lower than the floor of the hallway. His eyes close on their own volition and he breathes, a soft, cold breeze catching in and caressing his hair, making him shiver. Perhaps it’s the height, or maybe just the blood loss, but the air seems more crisp at this height, cool and clean and fragrant, smelling of morning dew and petrichor. A hint of a tired smile steals itself onto his lips, fleeting like the breeze brings it and takes it away. The first rays of the morning sun warm his face, making his skin feel alive even as he feels more blood soaking his clothes and it occurs to him that chances are that this is the last morning he will see. His next breath shudders, the one after that is steady and deep. He opens his eyes and feels his heart shatter in his chest.

The terminal he needs to reach is on the other end of the rooftop but he can barely see it, would barely register it even if it weren’t half hidden behind the too familiar figure, the one he is agonisingly unsurprised to see, even as he wishes with from the marrow of his bones that the other man weren’t here.

His hands shake and his legs are numb, but they keep him upright, keep supporting his weight as he stumbles out further onto the rooftop. For the fraction of a moment, his eyes find the horizon, the stunning view of the city that sends a rush of vertigo to him as he tries to appreciate its beauty. Takes another step forward, and another.

“Hey Harold.” the other greets him, voice low and soft but unmistakable even over the gentle wind.

He looks up and sees the heartbreak in John Reese’s beautiful eyes, sees them fill with worry as they trail downwards towards the spreading stain of red on Harold’s waistcoat.

“Are you…?” John begins but trails off. Probably realising there is little point to the question in their current circumstances. Not under any circumstances that they’ve ever met, but John has always defied Harold’s expectation, and some foolish, broken sliver of his heart flutters with long familiar admiration.

His hand is still shaking, more so than ever, and the gun feels too heavy even as he watches his arm lift it until the muzzle is pointed towards John’s heart, and his grip is tight and secure despite the cold sweat covering his palm. He has never fired a gun, but he knows he won’t miss from this distance. They both know.

For once, John’s hands are empty, if he is carrying a weapon, he is making no attempt to reach for it. There is a certain sense of irony somewhere in this, it occurs to Harold. To be here with _him_ , this one last time, and in reversal of the position they’ve found themselves in countless times over the last five years. Wonders if he will be capable of pulling the trigger, the way John had been unable to all these years when it had been Harold on the other side. The faintest line of an unhappy frown forms between John’s brows as he takes a step forward and Harold’s grip tightens further around the weapon.

“Don’t. Please.” His voice breaks on the plea, but John stops coming closer, stays far enough away that they’re both all too aware he couldn’t disarm him in time. The heartbreak is back in John’s eyes.

“This wasn’t supposed to be the way.” Harold barely recognises his own voice now.

“Wasn’t it?” John’s is bitter, anguished, and the smile that flickers over his face looks like a gaping wound across his soul. A moment of understanding passes between them, lets Harold wrap a semblance of composure around himself, though there is nothing he can do to stop his voice from shaking.

“No. Or maybe I merely hoped it wouldn’t end like this. Or maybe it was always inevitable and I just refused to see it.”

“It doesn’t have to be, Harold. It doesn’t have to end like this. Go. I can get you to a hospital.” A single tear rolls over John’s cheek and even now, Harold can hardly bear to see him so devastated. It breaks one of the few still intact fragments of his heart when he shakes his head as much as his fused neck allows him and watches a second tear join the first.

“You know what I need to do and that I cannot leave before that, just like I know you have no intention to allow me to do this. And I know it’s pointless to ask, but...” He swallows thickly and his own eyes sting. “Please, John. Please, let me through. You’re right, maybe it doesn’t have to end like this, just please...”

John takes a step closer and Harold releases the safety of the gun, a shudder of not entirely physical pain running through him when John comes to a halt immediately.

“It’s like you said. I can’t let you do that, I can’t let you destroy Samaritan.” He laughs, briefly and pained and hollow. “You know, I’ve been trying to save the world for so long, this seems almost a bit anticlimactic. But maybe, if I do this, it’ll finally be enough. But you… You don’t have to be here. You know there’s a missile headed for us and… Please, I don’t want to die knowing you’ll die with me. Just get out of here, Harold. _Please_.”

The steely determination in John’s eyes is as familiar to him by now as anything else about him, more perhaps, since it’s what allowed him to come after Harold for five years. It’s what Harold has battled against countless times. Determination and loyalty, unbroken no matter how Harold tried to convince him, tried to make him see the threat his employers pose. But John is a man with and in need of a purpose and as much as Harold admires, _loves_ him for it, he now wishes for nothing more than to break his loyalty and take his purpose, for a chance to replace it with one to tie him to Harold’s side the way Harold’s heart is tied to him.

After the life he’s lived, the mistakes he made, his greatest regret shouldn’t be failing to meet John in time, before Decima found him after Ordos and dug their claws into him. It seems like such a selfish one to have. “I don’t have to die, neither of us do. There is still time. Let me establish the uplink for the Machine and we can both leave together.”

It’s John who shakes his head now, stubborn as ever and Harold resents that it doesn’t make him feel anything other than terribly, painfully fond. “Samaritan’s done so much good, it saved so many lives...”

“And it took even more. And yes, so did the ISA when they gained their information from my Machine, but those were people. Flawed, fallible people, but _people_. Samaritan took more than just the lives of individuals, it took the free will of all of us.”

“I can’t let you do this. You’ll have to shoot me.”

“I will.” The words feel like swallowing razor blades and a raw sob leaves him, his own tears running freely now, but they are the truth. He once promised John to never lie to him and he has yet to break that promise and John nods with a shuddering sigh. Turns his gaze skywards and when it returns to Harold, it’s with something akin to resignation, or perhaps hope.

“Then shoot me. It’s okay. I can’t… I can’t let you through and just let you destroy the program I... But I can let you do this. It’s okay, I promise, just… promise me you’ll leave and go to the nearest hospital, that’s enough for me. As long as you’ll live, it’s enough. It’s okay, if you shoot me. I’m… I’m glad it’s you.” And god, Harold can see, can feel that every word is genuine and there shouldn’t be enough left of his heart to hurt like this. He shakes his head.

“Dammit, Harold!” There is desperation in his voice now and the tear tracks on his cheeks gleam in the morning light. He is heartbreakingly beautiful, Harold thinks as the view of the city seems to fade around them, fades like the entire world, leaving only them and this moment and the agony behind Harold’s ribs that flares up when John brokenly continues. “Just do it! Just...”

“I will if I need to, but I really hope I won’t have to, because I… Please, John, don’t make me hurt you. You and I both know that unless you let me upload the Machine _now_ , there is little chance that either of us will make it out of here before that missile hits, so please, consider this my last request, if you will. Please don’t force one of my last memories to be of killing the man I...” Another sob interrupts him, saves him, maybe.

John’s eyes widen and grow soft around the agony in them. He raises on hand as if to reach out for him, shaking as badly as Harold’s own before dropping uselessly back to his side. “ _Harold..._ ” he breathes. Like a benediction. Like a condemnation.

“Please.” He whispers back, the only word he seems to have left now and he doesn’t even know if it reaches John or if it’s quiet enough for the wind to rip it from his lips and steal it away. “Please.”

And then something shifts, quiet and fundamental, and John’s eyes flicker away, search the horizon for something unknown to Harold before they fall closed and more tears fall, catching the sunlight, clinging to the line of his jaw before the breeze tugs them loose, lets them drop onto John’s signature white shirt. When they open again, they’re still anguished but suddenly so lost, and it takes Harold a moment to process that the determination is gone, leaving something empty in its wake and he realises he has won. Victory shouldn’t taste this hollow. Shouldn’t feel as though the last, still intact piece of himself is now irrevocably fractured.

He can’t help but grip the gun tighter when John starts close the remaining distance between them, but he doesn’t ask him to stop and John doesn’t seem to notice, even as Harold thinks he can feel his heartbeat transferred through the metal from where John’s chest his now pressed against the muzzle, the pressure keeping it right above his heart.

“Dammit, Harold.” It’s a whisper now, desolate and adoring. John is looking at him as though he has never seen him before, or maybe as though this is the last time he will be able to see him and he has to commit each detail of Harold’s features to memory. His hand comes up, trailing calloused fingertips over Harold’s laugh lines, caressing his cheek and then his lips. Giving Harold another broken smile.

And then their lips meet, tasting of salt and fear and love and their time is running out by the second. Harold should rush over to the terminal, should send what’s left of his Machine up to that satellite to fight what may well be a losing battle. But he can feel John’s pained smile against him and decides there will be enough time for just a fraction of a moment more of this, of John’s lips and the agony of his gunshot wound and the gun in his hand pressed to John’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! I hope you liked it? My eternal love to everyone who leaves comments, comments are what feeds my writer soul :D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Exit Status by MnemonicMadness [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16715544) by [tchouli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tchouli/pseuds/tchouli)




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